Are you ready? Are you stoked?

With exactly a month until the start of school, involved UBC students like me are excitedly preparing for the incoming school year and enjoying the rest of our summers. In particular, we are preparing for IMAGINE Day!!!

Now for all incoming students, what is Imagine Day? Something that can’t be missed of course! It is an orientation for all first year students, which consists of three parts:
1. Introductions, meeting students just like you who are likely enrolled in the same courses as you are. This portion is great and I know a lot of people who are close, if not best friends who met in their MUG group. Since you may be nervous, your MUG leader will lead some icebreakers. I remember one that I did last year was “What is your song of the moment?” Mine was Sway by The Perishers, and most of my MUGees’ (as I like to call them) answers were the songs they had as their alarm clock…*beep! beep beep!* Nah. They were actual songs.
2. UBC/Your faculty introduction. The Dean of your faculty and usually Stephen J Toope (correct me if I’m wrong), the President of the university, greets you. Some clubs also perform acts. It’s fun.
3. Exposure to a professor relevant in your studies. They have a name for this, which I can’t remember off the top of my head but it’s basically a chance for you to ask a professor questions. When I was a MUGee, my professor was my Arts Studies (English) professor, and having that exposure to her at that time made me like her more because of the way she showed that she was open to answering questions and not scary at all (except when marking papers haha). Run-on sentence! She would not approve.
4. Lunch! Pizza and time to talk to your fellow MUGees! Talk to your MUG leader/Squad Leader/Squad Manager too, although it’s likely you’ll never see them again (honestly). You could wind up connecting with them though-I don’t discourage it.
5. Campus Tours! Your MUG leader would have planned something, or she/he will ask you where you want to go. If you don’t know, that’s fine. I didn’t know we had a ‘Harry Potter Room’, also known as the Ridington Reading Room in the Irving K Barber Learning Centre.
6. Pep Rally!! This is one of the best experiences you’ll have during the day, when everyone who entered UBC in your year crams into one room for some speeches, alumni congratulating you, and the pep rally. You’re taught your faculty’s cheer earlier in the day, and you get to shout it as loud as you can/want there!
7. And then, you’re let out on your own to explore the fair/clubs who have set up booths on one of the streets. In my year, it was on West Mall (the street).

I’m a Squad Manager this year for the Coordinated Arts Program, which means I basically run around making sure that the logistical matters are working properly. Being the organized but laidback person I am, it’s only going to be fun! Tomorrow, we have our Leader Appreciation Day, which is a barbecue and activities. I went to it last year and we wound up having a game of California Kickball around the trees in the area between the SUB and Brock Hall. Super fun!